Her bulging shoulders are doorway wide and she has traps most musclemen would be proud of.

But this muscular maiden (pic above right), apparently on the brink of bodybuilding stardom, is just 16 years old and a high school student.

She is one of a growing army of teenage girls swapping boys for bodybuilding as kudos of being a 'buff babe' grows by the day.

The days of girls aspiring to a petite, soft, unthreatening look are being left in the past as today's teen sweats it out in the gym to build iron-hard pecs and granite-like quads.

Mel, who is also a competitive swimmer, started pumping iron seriously two years ago.

She has packed on 20lbs of solid muscle and added more than two inches to her impressive biceps.

Mel in relaxed mode

She said: “I started swimming in 4th grade and was always decent, never great. In 8th grade we were practising with my current high school team and the coach told me I was too short, too weak, and too slow to ever swim for them.

“I went home in tears and was ready to quit right then. Instead I decided I was going to show that a**hole how good I could be and resolved to have him begging me to swim for the school.

“The next day I started researching everything I could about getting better and stronger at swimming and knew that the only way I could get better was to start lifting.

“I took all my money from babysitting and found the only gym that would let a 14 year old join. since then I've lived in the weight room and the pool and I love every minute of it.”

She added that she loves the attention her muscles brings and said: “I love having people gawk at me in the gym or when I wear tank tops, and being a sophomore and having every lifting record at my school.

“I loved gaining 20lbs of muscle. No one believing that i just turned 16 and work this hard or look like this.”

(Not so little) Lisa

Lisa is also 16, and a college student who started lifting when she was 14 and had never looked back. She said: “I started doing weightlifting and now I'm hooked.”

Super Sadie

Sadie, at 19, is marginally older but just as buff and has the same desire to pack on muscle and confound expectations.

The former wrestler from Ontario started bodybuilding training in January 2009 and now lives for it.

She took 4th place at the Northern Ontario Bodybuilding Championship: Figure (medium class) when she was just 17.

She said: “I love muscles. I love that you need to work your ass off to get them. Training gives me confidence and something to look forward to. It gives me a way to blow off steam and I could not live without it.”

Flexing Finn!

Jeaninen is also now 19-years-old and from Klaukkala in Finland. She started lifting weights at the age of 13 and says bodybuilding has been in her blood since birth.

Ericca: “I want to be very big and strong!”

Ericca is now 18 and has been training for less than a year but has packed on the muscle. The aspiring Ms Olympia has a simple motto – she says “I want to be very big and strong!”

Lecturer at the London College of Physionomy Janet Clarke said: “These girls are at the forefront of a revolution which is every bit as important as the sexual revolution of the 60s.

“They are helping redefine the acceptable norms of what women look like – they are no longer the 'weaker sex' “The way fitter and more muscular female physiques are now common in popular culture says much about how far we have come.”